


Details

by PunkRoxas



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Punk, College, Gen, Punkstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkRoxas/pseuds/PunkRoxas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat doesn't remember the first time he met Gamzee. They just sort of fell in step together with Karkat's fucking sailor speak and Gamzee's clown drivel, bro. He does know that Gamzee smokes way too much pot and smells like cat piss. There's that.</p><p>Punkstuck is one of my favorite Homestuck AU’s and I wanted to give it a go. All of these will be short stories that will play off of each other. Most of them will be through the eyes of my two favorite Homestuck characters, Rose and Karkat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Details

He doesn’t really remember the first time he met that idiot who hangs around the back of the bar. Met and seen of course are two different analogies. Because if you asked Karkat the first time he saw him he’d say it was probably when the boys from the gang on Third Street got Karkat to blow his lid. And when they grabbed him, legs and all, kicking and screaming and took him out back to give him two black eyes and toss him in the dumpster. He’d tell you he saw the tall, gangly, dirty boy with clown makeup smoking a cigarette with a few friends as he was carried to said dumpster.

However, Karkat doesn’t remember when he first met Gamzee Makara.

But he did. They meet behind said bar every Thursday so that Karkat can complain and rant and sometimes try not to breath, because let’s be honest, Gamzee smells like shit. Karkat isn’t sure the last time he had a bath but the smell of cat piss, pot and sickly sweet Faygo is starting to give him a headache. He’s told Gamzee this but the boy just chuckles as if he knows a secret about why that is. He’s not the only one either. If his friend Kurloz shows up, that one doesn’t smell much better. Karkat wonders if Gamzee and Kurloz are actually their real names sometimes or just their juggalo clown aliases. He’s never thought to ask. After all, his mother named him Karkat and Kurloz doesn’t talk. He only nods. It’s creepy.

So, every Thursday that’s where the struggling community college kid finds himself. He’s a freshman with no money to his name and already quite the hefty amount of student loans piling up. He’s got a reputation for picking fights on campus and an even bigger reputation for black eyes and dark circles. In fact, some kids in some of his classes like to play a game to figure out which he’s sporting today under his eyes. Most would bet a little of both and most would be correct. Karkat likes to wear hoodies to class so he can put his hood up and everyone can keep their goddamn mouths shut about it. He smokes way too much and drinks way too little. Or that’s what he’ll tell you.

Gamzee gives him someone to talk to, someone who will offer nods and lazy smiles and far off looks. Even if Gamzee isn’t actually taking anything in its nice to hear an ‘I hear ya, motherfucker.’ every once in a while when it comes to your rants. Karkat likes that about Gamzee. That he listens, or pretends to listen. Although, if you let him Karkat would probably rant to you about ‘that fucking clown idiot’ for quite some time but Gamzee has learned that just means he cares. And Karkat is happy to have a friend, even if he won’t always admit it.

Karkat’s best friend, Sollux, moved away for school a few months ago. The black haired boy told him he didn’t care and he didn’t see him off. He opted instead to shove his face under his pillow and tell himself about just how much he didn’t care. Sollux told him he didn’t care either but he was upset when ‘that prick’ didn’t come to say goodbye. They talk online when Sollux isn’t’ bogged down with class work and his new girlfriend which sadly isn’t often.

Girls. Karkat doesn’t like girls. They’re annoying and he just assumes that like the one in his intermediate math class, they all sit in the back row and snicker and throw spitballs at you. They also never miss even though Karkat was under the impression that a white cane meant you were blind and even though he literally flipped his desk over one day because she just wouldn’t stop. Then she accused him of yelling at the blind girl. What a bitch.

It was a girl who pierced his lip, though. Gamzee took him a week ago. It was the first time they’d ever left the back of the bar together. The place wasn’t even shady, like he thought it would be. Karkat had been fidgeting with his drawstrings on his hoodie the entire walk over. Gamzee wouldn’t stop humming and it was getting on his nerves and he says that’s why. The girl was taller than him and probably older than him and had a smirk for a smile and two long braids that trailed out of her short hair. She called him’ shouty’ and kid a lot and Karkat had to admit he didn’t find her to be that bad. She knew Gamzee through Kurloz although she claimed they didn’t get along. Another older boy with pointy shades and blonde hair giving a tattoo in the back chuckled at Karkat when the needle went in and he thrashed and shouted and the girl told him to sit the fuck down. “Go easy on him, Meenah.” He’d called from the back of the shop. Who gave a tattoo with sunglasses on anyway? What a fuckass.

After he paid, she’d tugged on the new lip ring just to make him squeal and he’d smacked her hand away and she punched his arm. He guessed she was okay, for a girl.

That was the only time Karkat had gone anywhere besides the back of the bar with Gamzee. Although, he wasn’t sure Gamzee went anywhere else. He’d never thought to ask and Karkat spent a lot of time at home. Gamzee did speak of parties once in a while and all Karkat imagined was a bunch of juggalo’s sitting around and smoking pot. Gamzee had never invited Karkat to these because they weren’t his to invite, he claimed. At least not until today.

It was a normal Thursday and Karkat was smoking his sixth cigarette of the day while telling Gamzee that he fucking hated people who didn’t pay attention where they walked and how professors were only professors to get paid and babysit sometimes, even though the students were paying a fuckton of money. And, as usual, Gamzee was nodding and smoking and leaning against the building, swinging his Faygo like nothing mattered. Then he sat up a bit and smiled as though he’d remembered something and he let Karkat finish before he spoke.

“I got a question for ya.” He said in his low growl, his smile starting to look like a kid on Christmas.

“Jesus Christ, Gamzee are you even fucking listening?” Karkat dug his feet into the ground and took another hard drag off his cigarette before spitting near the clowns shoes. “I mean, I’m baring my fucking soul over here, you jackass.”

Gamzee nodded, smile still in place, eyes still far off, as always. “Ya wanna smoke some pot?” Karkat had smoked pot several times in his life and once with Gamzee. It had been on their Thursday, like today and had left Karkat in such a state the next morning he hadn’t gone to class. Whatever the clown smoked, Karkat hadn’t thought about it being laced. It was.

“No I don’t want to smoke any pot, you fuck. It’s Thursday, damn it and I have class tomorrow and your shit is always wrecked.”

Gamzee chuckled, shook his head and scratched at something behind his ear. Karkat thought about how Gamzee really needed a shower and imagined fleas jumping off his skin.

“Not now, bro. Unless ya wanna now, cause I got some…But, uh…” Gamzee pushed off the wall and the taller boy put his arm around Karkat’s shoulder and Karkat’s nose scrunched up and he tried not to breathe before pushing Gamzee off.

“You smell like shit, asshole.” And the juggalo chuckled like he always did when Karkat told him that and shook his head.

“There’s a party tomorrow and if you go we’re gonna have some good shit and a lot of booze. Gonna be legendary.” Karkat had never been invited to one of Gamzee’s ‘legendary’ parties. (They were all legendary, apparently.) He wasn’t sure he wanted to sit around with a bunch of juggalo’s and drink the ‘wicked elixir’ and talk about miracles though.

“Dude, do I look like a fucking clown to you? No way, man.” Gamzee chuckled again and shook his head.

“Only Kurloz and me’ll be down with the clown, bro. Meenah and Dirk’re goin’.”

Karkat grimaced. As if he was supposed to be more willing if Meenah was going. Please.

“…Where is it?” Gamzee grinned as if he’d just won the lottery and chugged the last of his Faygo. When he was done he scribbled the address on the label of the purple fizz drink and handed it to Karkat who took it with a look of disgust.

“I’m countin’ on you, motha fucker.”

Karkat spit on the ground again and finished his cigarette. “I didn’t say I was fucking coming, you idiot.” But the boy put the bottle in his backpack anyway before he turned to go. “I have things to do. If I go, it better not be a dark carnival worshipping shit riot or I’m gonna be pissed as fuck.” Gamzee just continued to grin as his friend walked off toward the main street of the city.

“See ya there, bro!”


End file.
